This year's been rough—really rough—for a lot of us. And now we’re heading into a time that's challenging for a lot of people in a good year, and even more so when we are facing all the weirdness and losses of dumpster fire 2020. So how to cope? Look, I’ll be real with you. There's nothing that's going to make things awesome. There's nothing that's going to make things the same as they used to be. What there can be is something to help us muddle through and get us into next year, which hopefully will be a little brighter.
So you’ve decided to (or been forced to) do the kind and socially responsible thing and stay at home while COVID-19 rolls up into your area. Thank you for helping slow the spread and flatten that curve so our hospitals and other resources can try to keep up with the demands on them!
But now what? After that glow of doing your part to save humanity wears off, what on earth do you do with these days and/or week ahead? How do you emotionally and mentally get through it?
I’m going to share with you everything I’ve learned from my experiences as 1) someone who works at home; 2) a hard-core introvert; 3) someone living with multiple chronic illnesses; and 4) a licensed clinical psychologist.
We grow up in all kinds of environments. You might have heard people talk about not knowing what a healthy marriage looks like since their parents didn’t have one. That goes for our dreams as well! If we don’t have a model for what’s possible, our dreams might be tiny. (Not that there’s anything wrong with tiny dreams! They can be really achievable and satisfying.)
Here are three types of models we might have for careers and dreams.
Dragons hoard, right? There are so many images of them curled up on a pile of gold and gems….which can’t be all that comfortable! So many lumps and hard surfaces and pointy things.
In my own life, as well as with my clients, I find it helps to personify things. In this case, let’s call perfectionism the Perfection Dragon. It hoards, it’s dramatic, and it symbolizes something mythical.
It’s harder than it sounds sometimes to just do stuff…we can have hobbies and business ideas that we adore, that light us up and make us bounce a little in our seat.
And then we don’t do them.
We think about it. We talk about it. We might even make a list of steps or materials that we need.
And we stay on the couch or in the bed or work late at our day job. Because, you know…one day.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we deprive ourselves of what we want and need most? Minds are so tricky! Here are three lies they like to tell us that keep us from doing what we love—and the antidotes.
To create something is a vulnerable act. It’s taking a chance. It might even show the world a piece of ourselves. In order to have that courage and that vulnerability, we need a safe space. We need a container for it where we will be met and seen through soft eyes.
And guess what? We don’t have to count on anyone else to make that space for us. We can do it for ourselves.
That’s where self-compassion comes in.
It sounds great to say “treat yourself like you would your best friend” and “love yourself!” Sayings like that look awesome on journals and Instagram posts. They never say much about how to do it or what self-compassion would look like, though!
All month I’ve been talking about self-compassion and ways to be kinder to yourself. Why? I think it’s key…key to finding ways to live with chronic illness, key to finding the courage to use our creative gifts, key to being able to connect with others. (If you’ve missed the other posts, check them out here.)
Although self-compassion is really important, we don’t get taught much about it. So we end up with misguided beliefs like these that can get in our way.
Listen, I know it’s hard. Most of us were not taught to be kind to ourselves. If you’ve been reading along this month and trying out some of the ideas in these posts, show yourself a little appreciation! Shifting ingrained patterns is tough. Especially our mental ones.
Mindsets are patterns of thinking and seeing the world. We’re often unaware of them. They just hover in front of us like a permanent Instagram filter, altering our perceptions of what is coming through. That filter can help us out or keep us stuck. Once we’re aware of our mindsets, we can have a little more choice about what actions we want to take and how we want to respond to stuff that happens in our lives.
Last week we talked about what self-compassion isn’t, busting some of the common myths that can get in the way of true self-care. Knowledge is really nifty! But we also need to get into the nitty-gritty of how to actually implement some of this knowledge in our daily lives. And how to do so even when there’s a severe spoon shortage.
Let’s start this week by looking at three things NOT to do when you’re trying out this whole self-compassion thingy.
Hey there Spoonie! Well, we made it through 2019. Well done indeed.
What’s that? After reading that line, your mind is already prepping a PowerPoint presentation of all the blunders and times you put your foot in your mouth and missed an opportunity, etc., etc., etc.?
And how did I know that? Because that’s what minds like to do. They’re really worried about our survival, so they are in constant worst-case scenario/training-for-the-end-of-the-world mode. To a survival-focused mind, things like fun and pleasure aren’t important, so they easily get glossed over or sometimes even fall right out of our minds.
This mental bias creates problems in other ways too. Here are three of them that can really grind down our self-compassion.
It happens every year. The calendar flips a page, and we are bombarded with messages about how to make ourselves better, faster, stronger, thinner, smarter, more organized, more attractive, richer, happier….how to make ourselves anything but what we already are. Whenever we get these messages, the underlying implication is that we aren’t enough just as we are. What is sold as self-improvement is actually thinly veiled criticism.
How to build immunity to these messages of inadequacy? Self-compassion and kindness. And here’s three steps towards getting more of that while focusing less on not measuring up to some impossible standard.
Everyone, but especially we spoonies, needs a solid self-care strategy. Even more so when under stress or busy. We get a lot of images of what that might look like, usually involving white clothes, candles, and something bubbly. Pretty on Pinterest, but not practical.
When I talk about self-care, I’m talking about the not-so-glamorous stuff. The nitty gritty details that can help your life run more smoothly in the long run. The things that we put off out of fear or because we think we don’t deserve them.
Last week I talked about how to plan for all the things that there are to do during the holiday season. There’s plenty of those! And if that’s not enough, there’s also an awful lot of expectations floating around about how we’re supposed to feel.
It’s even in the language we use (I’m speaking for the U.S. since that’s my experience): Happy Holidays. Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas. Peace. We even get told how much noise to make—Silent Night. There are pictures on TV and social media of people being loving and cuddly. There’s an assumption that everyone has a family to go to, that everyone wants to go to their family, and that every family is welcoming. AND that when we get to that family, we will all have a good ol’ time and get along in our matching pj’s.
Yeah, right. That utopia exists in Hallmark movies but not most places. What feelings are realistic for the holidays? ALL OF THEM. It’s not like we enter some wormhole on Thanksgiving that takes us outside of being human beings until January 2nd. We’re just as human in December as we are any other time of year, and that includes having all of the thoughts, feelings, and reactions that are part of the human experience.
So what to do? Here are four things to try out this holiday season and beyond.
You’ve seen it on Instagram: “talk to yourself like you’d talk to your best friend.” So hard to do! And even harder if some of that internal trash talk comes from comments people have made to you about being chronically ill or from things you’ve heard or seen in society about illness and disability. Here are three simple (although not necessarily easy) strategies that won’t take too many spoons to do.
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Welcome! And congrats on doing something nice for yourself today!
